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Browder, Dorothea
2015.
WORKING OUT THEIR ECONOMIC PROBLEMS TOGETHER: WORLD WAR I, WORKING WOMEN, AND CIVIL RIGHTS IN THE YWCA.
The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era,
Vol. 14,
Issue. 02,
p.
243.

The New Negro and Social Democracy during the Harlem Renaissance, 1917–37

This essay focuses on the conception of social justice devised by A. Philip Randolph, noted socialist, co-founder of The Messenger, and organizer of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and Frank R. Crosswaith, a general organizer for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and one-time Messenger correspondent, in the aftermath of World War I. Weaving together a socialist critique of modern industrial society with a powerful vision of human freedom and equality, Randolph and Crosswaith articulated a distinctly egalitarian conception of social justice that asserted the equal right of all to benefit from society's advances. Arguing that genuine social justice was predicated on the open participation of all, they fashioned a program of reform that drew on black racial identity to frame their vision of class consciousness and, in so doing, planted the roots of an independent strain of black radicalism that was not intellectually beholden to whites. Although historical writing on the New Negro recognizes the importance of Randolph and to a lesser degree Crosswaith, this writing overlooks their innovative thought and its philosophical and political basis.

32 In a 1936 pamphlet co-authored with Alfred Baker Lewis titled “True Freedom for Negro and White Labor” (published by the Negro Labor New Service), Crosswaith insisted that all “racial and national hatreds must be wiped out” for there to be any chance of winning the “battle against poverty, against war, against human exploitation, against race prejudice, against all that stands in the way of human brotherhood and a noble life” (p. 58); A. Philip Randolph, “Black Zionism,” The Messenger, Jan. 1922; Dawahare, Nationalism, Marxism, and African American Literature, 16–17.

33 “The New Negro—What is He?” The Messenger, Aug. 1920.

34 Moore, “Afro-Americans and Radical Politics”; Stein, World of Marcus Garvey, 42–43; In his article, “Vanguards of the New Negro,” Chad L. Williams outlines the shape of racial militancy among returning black veterans and notes that many gravitated toward the radical politics of postwar Harlem. In addition to writing for outspoken black newspapers like The Messenger, organizing black veterans groups like the League for Democracy, and joining Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association, some black veterans like Harry Haywood (a former member of the highly decorated 370th Infantry Regiment) joined the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), a secret paramilitary group committed to black self-defense, African liberation, and the overthrow of global capitalism (p. 347–48).

37 Both Dan Carter, Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South (Baton Rouge, LA, 1979), and Mark Naison, Communists in Harlem during the Depression (Urbana, IL, 2004), detail the Communist Party's involvement in Harlem especially and illustrate that there were radical alternatives to Randolph and Crosswaith's left as well.

50 A. Philip Randolph, Text of Address Given by A. Philip Randolph, International President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porter, at the Union United Church, “Speeches 1955–58,” box 2, Randolph Papers, Schomburg Center.

51 Randolph, Statement to Educational Political Conference in Chicago, Illinois, at the International House.

52Weinstein, James, The Decline of Socialism in America, 1912–1925 (New York, 1967) 28–29; Howe, Irving, Socialism and America (New York, 1985), details how “regionalism” proved to be “a source of grave trouble for the party” as it came to confront “overriding national issues” in the years leading up World War I (6–7).

65Davis, Colin J., “Eugene V. Debs: From Conservative Unionist to American Socialist” in The Human Tradition in American Labor History, ed. Arnesen, Eric (Wilmington, DE, 2004), 97–98; Dubofsky, Melvyn, We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World (1969; Urbana, 2000), 52.

80 Howe, Socialism and America, 20–22; Davis, “Eugene V. Debs: From Conservative Unionist to American Socialist,” 93; Buckingham, Peter H., “Visions from the ‘Beautiful Trinity’: The Drawing of the Cooperative Commonwealth in the Popular Socialist Press” in Expectations for the Millennium: American Socialist Visions of the Future, ed. Buckingham, Peter H. (Westport, CT, 2002), 76–78.

81 In discussing Debs's participation in the 1888–89 Burlington Railroad strike in Eugene V. Debs, Nick Salvatore explains that Debs came to understand the strike as the “ultimate” defense of workers' “basic integrity as men and citizens” (72, 79). This kind of framing of labor activism overlapped with the notion of social justice that Randolph and Crosswaith were devising.

82 “The Negro and the New Social Order,” The Messenger, Mar. 1919.

83 “Negro Workers: The A.F. of L. or I.W.W.” The Messenger, July 1919.